2015 Pentastar V6 Towing [SUPERCHARGER SUCCESS!]

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Good news......it is all together and running!



upload_2021-3-14_15-37-32.png


The engine started immediately without any bad behavior. It is running on a stock tune, but with the modified Diablo Sport PCM installed. The modified PCM's allow 3rd party programming - or so they say. Running the stock tune for initial warm-up and coolant burping is ok. It does, need the proper tune before I drive it anywhere.

Right now - the Diablo Sport tuner will not recognize the system properly. The system need the VIN to match a pair of calibration numbers before it will work. I am guessing one of the calibration numbers was entered incorrectly.

I have sent an email to Diablo Sport and I believe they will be more responsive than Sprintex.

All I need to do now is a little clean-up and burp the two cooling systems a few times before getting it out for some road tests. The blue hoses are the ones that I added with some custom connectors - this accommodates the differences in the kit to my truck.


In other news - I worked out a plan to make it easier to re-install when it comes time for the plugs to be changed. I am machining some custom studs with captive nuts and will mill the lower part of the manifold to work with them. That should shave a lot of time and reduce huge amounts of exotic profanity.
 

Fishstickz

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Good news......it is all together and running!



View attachment 241234


The engine started immediately without any bad behavior. It is running on a stock tune, but with the modified Diablo Sport PCM installed. The modified PCM's allow 3rd party programming - or so they say. Running the stock tune for initial warm-up and coolant burping is ok. It does, need the proper tune before I drive it anywhere.

Right now - the Diablo Sport tuner will not recognize the system properly. The system need the VIN to match a pair of calibration numbers before it will work. I am guessing one of the calibration numbers was entered incorrectly.

I have sent an email to Diablo Sport and I believe they will be more responsive than Sprintex.

All I need to do now is a little clean-up and burp the two cooling systems a few times before getting it out for some road tests. The blue hoses are the ones that I added with some custom connectors - this accommodates the differences in the kit to my truck.


In other news - I worked out a plan to make it easier to re-install when it comes time for the plugs to be changed. I am machining some custom studs with captive nuts and will mill the lower part of the manifold to work with them. That should shave a lot of time and reduce huge amounts of exotic profanity.

Glad to hear its running after all you’ve had to go through on the install lol

Hopefully you’ll get some good torque gains out of it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
OP
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The party continues......

The latest waste of 1.5 days is with Diablosport who is responsible for the PCM and programmer for the Sprintex supercharger kit.

I spent a big portion of Sunday scouring the internet for knowledge on how to get this system to work. The Diablosport forum seemed like a nice place to start - but it fails when I tried to sign up. I get a cryptic error and nothing else. When I try again - it says the email is already in use. Bla, bla, bla.....I tried with other emails and got the same result. Just errors.

They did, however answer the phone (after about 40min of on-hold music) first thing on Monday. The technician struggled to understand what was happening. Eventually - I told him that I saw some discrepancies in the calibration data. He then emailed me some secret files and the unit updated itself. He said, "ok! that's it, you should be good". I was dubious of this, but he was insistent and wanted to get off the phone. Total - 1hr or so.

Welllll.....he was wrong. The programmer still could not recognize the truck. It updated the 'calibration' on the truck PCM but that is it. That process took about 30min or so. There was no way this was ever going to work on its own - the PCM and programmer were never setup correctly

Back on the phone with another 30 minutes of repeating on-hold music. This time, I got a tech that seemed considerably more savvy. He remoted to my PC and made some changes/fixes to things that were incorrect on their end. Again, after his initial fixes he insisted that everything was good to go and wanted to get off the phone.

So, off to the truck and sure enough IT CONNECTED this time. Only problem - the Sprintex tune was not available. In fact, no tunes are available. Back to the PC I go where it tells me updates are available. I click the button to update, it downloads a number of files and stops. The PC says follow instructions on the programmer device, but the programmer device has no instructions. I left it for about 10 hrs while I went to work - nothing changed.

[skipping a few hours now.....but this updating was in a loop. It updated, then immediately says updates available and nothing ever changes]

Guess what I will be doing first thing in the AM? More hours of Diablosport!!

At this point - the project is just a 40 hour / $7,000 comedy show. Sprintex and Diablosport have proven to be horribly unreliable. The way I see it, they have put enormous effort into products that are 95% amazing - the last 5% that is missing renders the whole thing totally worthless.

2 days is my deadline to reverse the install and go back to a bone stock truck. I have a trip in two weeks that I do not intend to miss.
 
OP
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.....The issues with Diablosport have been escalated. Spoke with a third technician today and he went through all sorts of detailed checks and changes but was unable to figure anything out. He says that he will take the data to the higher level technicians or perhaps the developers to get some answers.


It sure makes this seem funny from Sprintex.......I started this step 4 days ago. :boxing:
upload_2021-3-16_10-22-57.png
 
OP
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After 4 technicians and roughly 5 total hours on the phone - Diablosport finally gave up and is sending a replacement programmer. Even though the programmer has failed, they do deserve credit for answering the phone and patiently stepping through a complex sequence of troubleshooting.

It is still unclear if this will work any different, but it is a logical step I guess.

I know that projects like this never really go without problems, but this one is even bigger than I would have guessed. The good news is that no permanent mods have been made and I can reverse all of this back to bone stock. It is unclear if Sprintex would accept any sort of return claim if it comes to that. If they don't - this would be an expensive experiment. Still, not the most money I have burned on a failed modification project.

The fate of this project is in the hands of Diablosport.
 

PoMansRam

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In other news - I worked out a plan to make it easier to re-install when it comes time for the plugs to be changed. I am machining some custom studs with captive nuts and will mill the lower part of the manifold to work with them. That should shave a lot of time and reduce huge amounts of exotic profanity.

You've got mad skills and that is very wise.

Not only for plug replacement, but for when that oil filter/cooler assembly starts leaking, which it will at some point.

I had no idea this blower kit existed, but I don't follow anything Jeep these days. Very cool write up you've done. Thanks for taking the time.

Short of taking the wheels off and lowering the front end towards the ground, or having one of those high dollar lay-over creepers, I dunno how any Ram 1500s can be worked on these days.
 
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Hopefully the new programmer works for ya! Did they say how long it would take to get?
Fingers crossed - they gave me an ETA of Friday although I take that with a grain of salt. Seeing is believing.


You've got mad skills and that is very wise.

Not only for plug replacement, but for when that oil filter/cooler assembly starts leaking, which it will at some point.

I had no idea this blower kit existed, but I don't follow anything Jeep these days. Very cool write up you've done. Thanks for taking the time.

Short of taking the wheels off and lowering the front end towards the ground, or having one of those high dollar lay-over creepers, I dunno how any Ram 1500s can be worked on these days.

My day job is product design, engineering and machining (aerospace and industrial) - super handy to bring those skills/experience to this project for sure. I have a CNC machine in the garage that I ended up using to make 2 parts for this project. I still need to made a bracket to support the A/C rigid lines. All minor jobs that don't require a CNC mill - but since it is available I will use it.

Physical access to the engine is interesting on this vehicle because the V6 is WAAAY far back. A huge amount of the engine is behind the windshield line. I did build a platform around the truck about 20" high which made things a lot easier, but in the end about 75% of the work I literally just crawled into the huge space between the radiator and the engine. Standing on the sway bar and frame was not too bad. The lay-over creepers are the only other practical option here. Anyone with fat fingers, big arms, etc is in trouble. So much of this requires access to some amazingly awkward places.
 

dearchristopher

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just read this whole thread, is it cruel to say that i’m excited to have found you approaching the finish line instead of crossing it?

sorry for your woes. i know how frustrating it can be to be waiting in the lurch on a company for updates.

i will say you are one talented and well-written dude. i’m looking forward to reading the good outcome. cant wait to see some videos of this truck doing the deed.


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OP
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Update:

Diablosport could not figure anything out after four technicians spent over four hours with me on the phone. Add in about 2 hours of on-hold time. In the end - they gave up and promised to send another unit. While that sounded good, I have zero expectations that it will actually happen as they described. After I offered to pay for expedited shipping and explained that the project is becoming time critical, they just said 'we will ship it out right away' via UPS from a Utah warehouse. That would be 2 day max transit time even if they use the slowest possible option - it has been 3 days so far.

I have a UPS account that notifies me of all inbound packages to my address - nothing is listed. So I called twice and no one could figure out if anything at all had happened. Total confusion. Based on the UPS notifications, I would guess they have not even shipped it after three days.

Next fun thing.....I have asked each person about what to do when it arrives to safely get the proper Sprintex Supercharger program on my device and in to the truck. Each one tells me a different story. Half tell me the 'Sprintex Supercharger program will just be on the device after you update it', the other half say 'You need to get the program from Sprintex'

The next logical thing to do is call Sprintex.....which goes to voicemail where I leave a very clear and concise message. Crickets.......
I leave another voicemail with the same message.......more crickets.......

There is no way to know if/when the Diablosport programmer will ever arrive. If it does arrive, there is no clear method of how to use it to get a program that no one really knows the location of.

At some point, my only option is to seek out every social media and forum to share this experience. It is hard to sell $7,000 supercharger kits when there are stories of horrible experiences all over.

Stalled at 99% completion. Final fate: Unknown.
 

ripping r

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Update:

Diablosport could not figure anything out after four technicians spent over four hours with me on the phone. Add in about 2 hours of on-hold time. In the end - they gave up and promised to send another unit. While that sounded good, I have zero expectations that it will actually happen as they described. After I offered to pay for expedited shipping and explained that the project is becoming time critical, they just said 'we will ship it out right away' via UPS from a Utah warehouse. That would be 2 day max transit time even if they use the slowest possible option - it has been 3 days so far.

I have a UPS account that notifies me of all inbound packages to my address - nothing is listed. So I called twice and no one could figure out if anything at all had happened. Total confusion. Based on the UPS notifications, I would guess they have not even shipped it after three days.

Next fun thing.....I have asked each person about what to do when it arrives to safely get the proper Sprintex Supercharger program on my device and in to the truck. Each one tells me a different story. Half tell me the 'Sprintex Supercharger program will just be on the device after you update it', the other half say 'You need to get the program from Sprintex'

The next logical thing to do is call Sprintex.....which goes to voicemail where I leave a very clear and concise message. Crickets.......
I leave another voicemail with the same message.......more crickets.......

There is no way to know if/when the Diablosport programmer will ever arrive. If it does arrive, there is no clear method of how to use it to get a program that no one really knows the location of.

At some point, my only option is to seek out every social media and forum to share this experience. It is hard to sell $7,000 supercharger kits when there are stories of horrible experiences all over.

Stalled at 99% completion. Final fate: Unknown.
well this sucks. i was hoping to here it pulled like a beast. can some one put it on a dyno and tune it? I also had no luck getting diablo tunes to work. but i would look for some one to tune it on a dyno.
 

rule18

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Update:

Diablosport could not figure anything out after four technicians spent over four hours with me on the phone. Add in about 2 hours of on-hold time. In the end - they gave up and promised to send another unit. While that sounded good, I have zero expectations that it will actually happen as they described. After I offered to pay for expedited shipping and explained that the project is becoming time critical, they just said 'we will ship it out right away' via UPS from a Utah warehouse. That would be 2 day max transit time even if they use the slowest possible option - it has been 3 days so far.

I have a UPS account that notifies me of all inbound packages to my address - nothing is listed. So I called twice and no one could figure out if anything at all had happened. Total confusion. Based on the UPS notifications, I would guess they have not even shipped it after three days.

Next fun thing.....I have asked each person about what to do when it arrives to safely get the proper Sprintex Supercharger program on my device and in to the truck. Each one tells me a different story. Half tell me the 'Sprintex Supercharger program will just be on the device after you update it', the other half say 'You need to get the program from Sprintex'

The next logical thing to do is call Sprintex.....which goes to voicemail where I leave a very clear and concise message. Crickets.......
I leave another voicemail with the same message.......more crickets.......

There is no way to know if/when the Diablosport programmer will ever arrive. If it does arrive, there is no clear method of how to use it to get a program that no one really knows the location of.

At some point, my only option is to seek out every social media and forum to share this experience. It is hard to sell $7,000 supercharger kits when there are stories of horrible experiences all over.

Stalled at 99% completion. Final fate: Unknown.
Wow... Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?

This is quite an adventure, but with it all at some point (hopefully sooner than later) you're going to get exactly what you wanted after all the research and planning. I can't imagine what the guys that don't have all the tools and machinery do when (if) their installs go south.
 
OP
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This is quite an adventure, but with it all at some point (hopefully sooner than later) you're going to get exactly what you wanted after all the research and planning. I can't imagine what the guys that don't have all the tools and machinery do when (if) their installs go south.

While some of my tools were really handy - all of this could have been done with more typical hand tools. I only used the fancy stuff because it is sitting right here. I would say that any shade-tree mechanic like myself could have overcome the obstacles - perhaps with a little more frustration though.


well this sucks. i was hoping to here it pulled like a beast. can some one put it on a dyno and tune it? I also had no luck getting diablo tunes to work. but i would look for some one to tune it on a dyno.

While this is technically possible, I will not go that route with this project. If this was a weekend race car, sure. One of my goals was to end up with a system that is reliable enough to take out in the middle of nowhere and not have too much to worry about as far as reliability is concerned. Putting the truck through countless Dyno pulls with unknown tuning parameters is a high-risk task that could earn me the opportunity to rebuild the engine.

At this point - the process is still 100% reversible. While I REALLY do not want to go that route - it is better than digging a deeper hole.
One or two more phone calls on Monday I guess. Every problem at this stage takes days.......


Moment of Zen:

upload_2021-3-20_12-30-22.png
 

GsRAM

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Good luck getting it ironed out. You have the persistence and will power to get it done and see this through. I am sure the ends will justify the means...but it sure has come with a good bit of pain.

I just can't imagine a company that sells a $7k product with such deplorable service after the sale.

I would not buy one of their products solely based on your experience to date. Not good.

Hang in there!
 
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Progress......99.9% there

upload_2021-3-23_16-2-16.png

After another 4-5 phone calls with Diablosport, they finally figured out that a replacement unit had not been sent. The last person started a whole new RMA and sent it overnight air. That happened about 5 days after the previous one was supposed to have shipped.

IT ARRIVED this AM!!!! And.........it only sorta works. It works more than the previous unit, but still fails to work in the end.
Cool....more phone calls. I will spare all of you the gory details since they are boring.

Next, I managed to get a hold of the right person at Sprintex who was actually really helpful. Hard to get a hold of, but very helpful. His primary contact at Diablosport was the last person I spoke with. I emailed the pertinent data to both Sprintex and Diablosport and they are in the process to trying to figure out solution.

Naturally, they both promised to call/email me 'as soon as they know something' - which I have heard a dozen times already. It is now after business hours, so I guess we move on to yet another day.

After all that, I get a notification that another Diabolsport i3 programmer is going to be delivered tomorrow - the original replacement order from last week, lol. So, now I will have 3 units.

With all of that said - it looks like it is literally down to a single file. There is a legal rub, however, since this is a C.A.R.B. certified system, the PCM tuning must be certified and unchangeable by the end user. To maintain the certificate, the data must follow a specified path.
 
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GsRAM

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Wow.. well this is exciting! Good stuff, at least things are moving forward!

After she's fired up, a video or two would be really appreciated.
 

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Any updates? Did you get it fired up?
 
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Any updates? Did you get it fired up?

It did fire up - immediately, but on the stock tune. That is good enough to verify that all is working and get the cooling system filled. It cannot be driven this way, at least not safely.

At least I know that the mechanical systems are working and there are no leaks. For now, it is just waiting for Sprintex and Diablosport to get the PCM programmed properly so I can get it out for testing.

Each issue with them takes days to resolve along with hours on the phone. Right now - it is literally down to a single file that can be emailed to me or remotely updated on the programming device. Seems so close.
 
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